The wearing of the green

 It is St Patricks day and there is a special cake in the Living Room. The cupcakes are decorated in green. The food continues to be good and the morning fruit salad is almost as good as the one TSH makes at home.

The sea has been more choppy and the Captain has decided to take a slightly longer route - hugging the African coast - to avoid the 8m swell in the centre of the depression. Diva has issued stugeron tablets. This is an interesting Captain, he is ex Royal Navy but hopefully his submariner skills will not be needed on this voyage. 

Some of the guests are confused by marine terminology. One asked his partner if their cabin was on the port or the starboard side. 'We are on the starboard', 'But we can't be. Because we could see the cranes when we were in port. That must be the port side'. 

Several guests have mentioned the Herman's Hermits performance and how much they enjoyed it. TSH and Diva have kept their own counsel.

The clocks have changed again. TSH has no idea why. And although they have switched off automatic time change on their phones, the phones seem to be making independent decisions about the time changes. 

TSH is pleased that he is becoming more familiar with the layout of the Spirit of Discovery and has successfully made a few short journeys alone,

Diva will wear her green jacket for dinner.

Rain in Cadiz

 TSH and Diva had already cancelled their coach tour, as they decided that they would enjoy walking around Cadiz on their own.  After a good breakfast, TSH sat on the balcony in the sun for a while. By the time they got to the gangway, the sun was gone and the heavens had opened. They only made it as far as the terminal building before they returned to the ship. The weather improved in the afternoon, so they took a short walk to the cathedral. A carnival was taking place and there was a lot of street theatre and people dressed in the sort of crazy costumes that the British reserve for Christmas and hen parties. 

TSH and Diva have mostly been impressed with the hygiene arrangements on the Spirit of Discovery. There are sanitisers everywhere and compulsory hand-washing on the way into buffets. All of the security staff have so far managed to scan their ship cards without needing to touch them. But one woman grabbed Diva's card and said that was the only way she could scan it. She looked totally blank in the face of Diva's protestations about the spreading of disease. In the unthinkable event that Diva catches norovirus, there will be a formal complaint.

TSH has started to take photographs.

First World problems

 The clean laundry was not delivered during the afternoon, as is usual, and there is no spare laundry bag, so TSH and Diva had to contact the butler again. The laundry appeared after dinner, the new dirty laundry was placed outside the door and there is now a spare bag for future use. 

The packing has proved comprehensive this time but Diva wished they had brought their Lakeland Sticky Stuff Remover. Her tube of foundation had a label which has proved impossible to remove by any other method. Inelegant.

Diva was unable to log into the ship internet to write this blog, so she thought she would write it in Word and cut and paste it in later. But Microsoft wanted her to log in and could not authenticate her without the internet. It would not even allow the use of Onenote. Is this organisation some sort of global domination monopoly? Don't answer that. 

The hair dryer supplied in the suite was designed and sourced by people who had never used a hair dryer. A button had to be continually depressed during use but its position was such that the manual skills to hold the button, hold the dryer itself and manipulate the hair brush were far beyond Diva's capabilities. A chat with a helpful woman on Reception resulted in a replacement dryer - there is still a button which must be held throughout but it seems easier to use. 

Banana soup

 Another day at sea, another 2 destination lectures and 'Murder most foul' from the geographic profiler. TSH and Diva are far too dignified to join in with line dancing but they were in the lounge where it was taking place. 'Achy breaky heart' went well but it was only during the Irish 'I'll tell my Ma when I get home' that the clapping and whoopping really get going. 

At lunch, a nearby Welsh woman tried to recruit a tall muscular waiter for her national rugby team but he assured her that he only played basket ball.

TSH and Diva watched the evening entertainment from the comfort of the suite. 'An evening with Herman's Hermits' featured only one of the original group and neither the vocals or the instrumentation was impressive. Finishing with an encore of 'I'm 'Enery the eighth  I am' did not strike an authentic note.

The time change went smoothly on this occasion, as automatic time change has been disabled on both phones and manual time setting turned out to work well. 

Dinner for both TSH and Diva was Chateaubriand, which both enjoyed. Despite Diva's love of bananas they both passed on the cold banana and Baileys soup (a starter, not a dessert!!).

Across The Bay

The notoriously choppy Bay of Biscay is smooth for TSH and Diva. Everyone now has all their bags - some guests had to have their first dinner in their travel clothes because the luggage had not been distributed. TSH and Diva were lucky to have had their clothes bags in time for their first major appearance.

The Spirit of Discovery is up-to date and has a button by the door to indicate 'do not disturb'. Next to it is another button saying 'make up room'. Diva was very excited and thought that this was a special place for applying her cosmetics. She had read the emphasis wrongly - it was an invitation for the cleaner to enter.

The day was leisurely - walks around the promenade deck, a lecture about Cadiz and another about the geology of Madeira. Both excellent speakers. The third talk - also excellent - was different from any other cruise ship talk. It started with a trigger warning about the violent and upsetting content.  The speaker was a Geographic Profiler who worked with the police to solve serious crime. The basis of the work was concerned with correlating the locations important to the criminal's life with the locations involved in the crime. He discussed several well-known crimes that he had worked on. Some police officers think that this work is more helpful than that of criminal profilers. 

TSH and Diva confirmed that Saga, like Silversea, will offer other complementary wines if the wine of the day is not acceptable to a guest. They were very impressed when the people at a nearby table tried to order 'paid for wine' and the waiter dissuaded them by offering a wide range of alternative complementary wines. 

TSH has so far taken no photographs.

Hard day's start

Tony the SAGA  driver remained cheerful throughout the long journey to Portsmouth. Despite being gutted the previous night at Anfield, where he saw Liverpool drop out of the UEFA Champions League. A short stop at Warwick services provided the opportunity for TSH and Diva to eat the bananas.

Embarkation was not as smooth as they had experienced at Dover. More queues and outdoor in the cold for a while.  Diva had her photo (for ship id)  taken twice because she closed her eyes the first time. A well known trait. A quick lunch was followed by going to the cabin to await the lugage. 2 of the 3 suitcases soon arrived but the 3rd did not appear until later in the evening. Diva went to reception before sailing so that they could assure her that the bag was onboard.   Moisturiser, hair styling products, shaving equipment ........ She had tried to telephone reception but there is no telephone directory and the butler's card did not contain a number. The reception number is listed on the television if you can find the right number but so far Diva had not had the time to work this out. 

Safety drill went smoothly as TSH remembered his card and no torches were involved for Diva to test.

Dinner had been arranged for TSH and Diva in the East meets West restaurant  and the meal was excellent. Diva wanted a nightcap in the cabin and was pleased that the butler had provided Merlot, as requested. But it had a cork and the butler had to be summoned to provide a corkscrew. Another baby butler to be trained.

Are we nearly there yet?

 The cruise clothes are on the planning rails and the toiletries are laid out on the spare room desk. TSH has put out his dinner suit, which he accidentally left behind on his last cruise. The suitcases are ready and TSH and Diva have both had their hair appointments. Diva's nail appointment was cancelled because she developed a very bad back, which meant that she could not attend. Fortunately things are now improving but her nails are still bare.

At home, fresh food is dwindling and Diva has suggested she might count the remaining tomatoes and divide by the number of lunches to work out the portion sizes. There will be no more food deliveries but there could be an emergency visit to Sainsburys to top up. There are enough bananas for sustenance on the journey to Portsmouth. 

TSH is pleased with himself because his garden improvement program is running to schedule and a short holiday is possible.